In her book Mists of Avalon Bradley (the alleged child abuser, see recent news) was reflecting on very real pagan traditions in Europe, which often practiced this style of naming their children — it's also true in some First Nations tribes today, I believe.

The early Celts had a tradition whereby a woman could instantaneously divorce her husband, and it would be completely and enthusiastically accepted by the community, for not satisfying her in bed. My tenth generation Celtic shaman teacher took this tradition to heart, apparently, and nary a woman he dated complained.

Yeah, that was a good movie. Small town rural psychic solving a crime, based on Billy's mom life and career. Equal elements of spookiness and suspense.

Most dogs are too young to be of the age of consent, anyway.

What's really cool is that there are SO SO SO SO SO SO SO many really cool kids in the foster care system in need of adoption.

So seven billion people headed to nine billion people by something like 2050 or so is good, you think? That we all need to keep population at replacement level? Despite the destruction of precious ecological areas and the fact that so many of those people are doomed to poverty? We're really NOT in danger of running…

Ari, you're talking about two extremes here — having kids and spending all your money on your kids or not having kids and "spending it on myself, completely selfishly." This might certainly be something you dream about, especially if you've worked damned hard (as most parents do) giving so much to your kids and have…

Oh, so we're into Real Talk now about being childfree and how it is simply a choice, and often one that Real Women put a great deal of research and thought into? And how, too often, women police each other/shut that shit down when Real Talk starts up about the many difficulties and challenges that come with having…

True. My current orange tabby lets me wear him like a necklace around my neck, hold him upside down, put him in "human doll" positions to receive tubby rubs, and is just generally what we call around here a "doughapuss." (Like dough. Malleable and sweet.) Past orange tabbies we've owned have also been this way;…

You should see all the Fifty Shades of Grey knockoffs, often using slight variations of that title, making shit tons of money for some erotica Kindle writers. I don't think readers have been too busy to complain about receiving knockoff versions because they're, um, too busy doing other things (one would guess) after…

You are an officially ordained piece of shit, Esme. Thank you for playing the blame game!

So......your "not believing" in what my family members experienced, what, makes what they actually went through okay?

The emotional bullying my aunt went through, the bizarrely clueless aggressive pressure my own elderly primary care doc exerted on me, and the incredibly sneaky, subversive, and quite frankly, illegal giving of my 90 year old mother-in-law (without her permission, knowledge, or clear understanding of what medication…

That's so frightening, CeltyQueeny! The "diseasification" of common emotional states, or the pseudo-medical "classification" of the broader spectrum of TEENAGEHOOD (i.e., hating your mother at times, wanting to die at times, feeling like you're the center of the universe at other times and nothing will ever go…

I think the worst is the extremely aggressive pushing of antidepressants; they really do often take a simple question like "Do you ever feel sad?" and exert a lot of undue influence sometimes in pressuring people who DON'T need antidepressants into taking them. I could see where a mopey teen could get conditioned by a…

Not to mention the STD cocktail they were most likely sharing between them. Poor girls.

Let alone the STD's this girl might have "just from the one time" with her boyfriend.......oldest story in the world, so sad. But kudos to the warrior educators on the front line, like you! :)

Yes, her daughter will be pregnant before she finishes high school the way this clueless mom is going in raising her daughter. And will be afraid to get checked for STD's, which could endanger the health of any children she has, too.

And if you're a parent, you are not qualified to critique/"enlighten"/or comment upon a childfree by free person's life, because you are not childfree by choice. (And we get hammered mercilessly by know it all parents convinced we're all demon spawn. Some of us might be, but we can't all choose our parents. :) )

Yes; don't forget the info that emerged a year or two ago that shared the sad info that the Catholic Church in Spain stole over 300,000 babies from their parents and sold them to adoptive couples over about fifty years - up through the 1990's. Many of the mothers were told their babies had died and they were refused…